


Happy Valentine's Day, Eurydice

by songbirdinacoalmine



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Drabble, F/M, I'm Sorry, References to Depression, Sad and Happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:56:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23904232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songbirdinacoalmine/pseuds/songbirdinacoalmine
Summary: Orpheus on the Valentine's Day of 2020
Relationships: Eurydice/Orpheus (Hadestown), Hermes & Orpheus (Hadestown), Orpheus & Persephone (Hadestown)
Kudos: 14





	Happy Valentine's Day, Eurydice

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I wrote this for a Valentine's Day Exchange on Tumblr! You may have already read it ahhh. Welp. It's bad.

The winds whistled a sweet tune. The birds sang a song of love. The river and lakes was scatting in the background of the jazzy ditty. It was a day of joy. A day of love. The whole world was back in tune. The only thing out of tune was the tuner.  
Orpheus had been out of tune for more than 5000 years now. He lost count. 5000 years he hadn't aged. 5000 years since he lost his muse. His Eurydice. He was better than he was before. When he first lost her, he was pitchy and jagged. His abrasive manner was toxic to the listener.  
Orpheus had a cycle. He'd wake up, hoping the songbird would be next to him. He still slept on one side of the bed, dreaming she was next to him. Her warmth would caress his skin. Her neck would tucked into his neck and her hair would somehow end up in his mouth. But there was no warmth, no caresses, and no suffocating hair. Instead, the cold and emptiness of the room would suffocate him. He would look for the only remedy for his symptoms in the form of a cold glass of scotch.  
And another.  
And another.  
And another.  
Orpheus was a lightweight, and would get drunker than an Irishman by 10 AM. Hermes, and occasionally Persephone, would check on him. He would dismiss him. No. He'd curse them out for not helping him save his lover. Not persuading Hades to let them go without terms. He knew it was his fault. Then he'd cry. He'd sob and sob, screaming the girl's name like she would respond and come out of the other room. The guilt got to him, and he couldn't bare living in the attic apartment above the bar.  
He left.  
He grieved.  
He reshaped his life.  
Orpheus started healing. He went from town to town, telling stories of heros, gods, and ordinary men. The gods eventually fell out of power from Greece. They were only myths now. Various tellings of ancient stories, warped with a mystical side of Ancient Greece. Then again, he wasn't from Ancient Greece. He was from the secret time of the Dark Ages of Greece. His story was written in a time of regression. The only way to fix what was lost. It became a golden age for Greece that most people knew.  
Orpheus himself also had to regress to make progress. He started playing his lyre again. He wrote music. Orpheus started to go to therapy and meditated. He traveled a lot, and became nomadic. He really had no home without her.  
He didn't say her name anymore. It was a way to forget what happened. When he really needed to refer to her, he used nicknames. He could never forget her name, but he had forgotten how the muscles would contort by saying her name.  
Orpheus' travels brought him to this rural forest in the United States of America, in the northern part of the state of Wisconsin. It was calm, and he could be one with nature in a small log cabin. The occasional hunters would stop by, with their funny accents and beer bellies clad in orange looking for a "turdy pointer." But now it was February of 2020. The spring was creeping up on the world. Sure, it was 5° out, and it felt like -6°, but he could feel a familiar friend creep up on the world. In the small log cabin, he decided he would celebrate the day.  
Orpheus lit six tiny tea candles and bought red carnations from a convenience store in a nearby town. He put the candles in the fireplace and flowers next to them. Orpheus' heart ached as he placed each tea candle in the fireplace. They warmed up his frozen nose, and melted his heart that had stayed fridged for too long. Then, he placed a larger candle in the middle of the fireplace and lit it. It was first lit the day the muse walked into the bar,and hadn't been lit since the day she left. Following that was her flask. It was barren and rusting on the inside, but it still held the memories of a hungry, young girl. Then, there was a crumpled up piece of paper. Orpheus flattened the creases. It was an old draft of his song. No, not his song. Her song. The songbird's ballad of love and loss. He may have written it, but it was her song.  
His heart was full of love, and grief. His face was warm from the thought of her touch. Orpheus felt liquid fall from his eyes.  
Tears.  
Feelings.  
Emotion.  
It was the first time he had actually felt in a while. His chest was fuzzy and lively. He smiled a genuine smile for the first time in almost 5000 years. He had seen loss, war, depression, revolutions, highs, lows, and so-sos. Orpheus felt….in tune. He was in tune with the world. He was in tune with his surroundings. He could feel her presence. She had not forgotten him, Orpheus knew it. 

"Happy Valentine's Day, Eurydice" He whispered.


End file.
